


I'll Ask Nothing

by Tvieandli



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tvieandli/pseuds/Tvieandli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian realized at some point that the only way to have Dick was to not expect anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Ask Nothing

Damian realized at some point that the only way to have Dick was to not expect anything. It was a sort of slap in the face that in order to have what he needed he just had to accept nothing being given.  
It was an inevitability that Dick would need to leave, or fall in love with some random woman, or forget that Damian was there.  
It hit Damian when he was sixteen, like a sort of epiphany when Dick tripped through the door with some woman. They were hanging on each other, loose from drink, or influence, giggling and happy.  
Damian was sitting in the living room in his underwear, watching the television, he’d looked up with a greeting, and just shut down. That “oh” moment when he realized that Dick would never truly be his. It had hurt, and it hurt still.  
It hurt to not ask for anything. It was a pain in his stomach when he was nineteen and Dick showed up on the door step of his new apartment, looking battered and beaten, and he didn’t ask why. It hurt when Dick crawled out of his bed in the middle of the night, and Damian woke up alone and in the dark.  
It hurt, but it was worth it. The little moments when he had him. The time that he got to hold him. Every little second of being near him was enough for it to be worth the pain in his stomach when Damian needed that comfort.  
He was strong after all. He’d been this for his mother for ten whole years. He could do it again. He would never visibly break under the pressure. He didn’t need to ask for anything in return.  
He would always be there, waiting. A home somewhere in Gotham, a comfort to be sought when needed, and forgotten when unnecessary. He could be used, and taken for granted, because that was all that enabled him to hold, and have, and love.  
It was the only thing he could do.  
So when he opens the door, and Dick is standing there with flowers and chocolate, cheery smile in place, Damian is silent, and accepting, allowing him in, and making him comfortable with a small smile.  
“So what’s up, kiddo?”  
“Nothing much. How are you?”  
And Dick tells him everything, all the pain, and sorrow, and the moments of dread shared within short hours. Hours that slowly lead them toward the bedroom at Dick’s behest. And when Dick falls asleep, Damian sits up, watching him, pushing the hair from his face, cherishing the small moments he has to love this man.  
It isn’t until Damian is twenty that Dick takes pause, and realizes that Damian hasn’t asked for anything for a very long time. He looks at his partner, his former prodigë, sitting nude beside him in the bed.  
“Why do you do this?” he asks.  
“Do what?”  
“You’re always here. You never ask for anything, and you never seem to see anyone else. You just wait. Why?”  
Damian sighs, and pushes a hand through his hair. A small smile that doesn’t really reach his eye is offered. “Would it really count as love if I asked? Would it really count as love if I had conditions that got in the way of making sure you were okay?”  
Dick’s face falls. He thinks of every moment he didn’t think about Damian. Every time he showed up unannounced, pulling Damian from whatever he’d been doing, and just been accepted. Every moment that he didn’t ask if Damian was alright. Wonders about every break down he wasn’t there to help with. Every panic attack he didn’t sooth. Every hurt he caused, and he looks at Damian sitting there, asking nothing, wanting nothing but to give Dick what he wants.  
He swallows around a lump in his throat, and strokes a hand along Damian’s thigh. It’s a level of devotion he didn’t expect. Something he’s taken for granted for years.  
Damian shifts down to lie beside him, and asks the only thing he’s ever asked when Dick visits.  
“How long are you going to stay?”  
“I don’t know.”  
Damian grunts, something that was just normal before, but Dick recognizes now as the man gearing to wake up alone. That hurts. It stings to know that Damian expects only to be left, and used. He deserves so much more. Deserves the world. Dick also knows that Damian would never take the world if it meant loosing Dick.  
That night, when he gets up to leave, he leaves his phone number written on a napkin on his pillow.  
When Damian wakes up to empty darkness, and a cold bed, he finds it, and smiles quietly to himself.  
“Call me”

-

“You can’t keep doing this, Damian.”  
Damian rolls his head on his neck, looking out the window with a bored expression, and a sigh. The tea mug in his hands is hot, and it almost burns the skin of his palms. Across the table, Tim has this look on his face, a tired look. They’ve been going around in circles this way for a year at least.  
Damian doesn’t want to hear it again. He didn’t want to hear it in the first place. Tim is the last person with the right to lecture him. Tim had done the same after all.  
“Colin’s worried.” Tim sighs, and glances out the window for a second, flicking a small thing of half and half in his hand. “You know he’s in love with you? The two of you could have a really nice life together. Maybe you could move in together, and be happy. If you’d just get over this thing with Dick, you could-“  
Damian thinks of the napkin in his pocket, the number, the words “call me”, the open invitation for Damian to come into Dick’s like rather than Dick randomly straying into Damian’s. He cuts Tim off by holding up his hand, eyes screwed shut. He presses the knuckle of his thumb to his nose before saying anything.  
“Have you ever thought that maybe I’m happy this way?”  
Tim’s patented bitch face does nothing to quell the tiny inferno of anger already burning in Damian’s chest.  
“Please, Damian, you have to listen to me. As someone who’s been through this-this exact same thing, with Dick-I know what you’re going through. I know how it feels, and I know how you just want him to be happy, but you have to get out.”  
“No I don’t!” Damian snaps under his breath. He isn’t one to make a scene, and he’s coming close to the boiling point. He’s sick of Tim, and of this conversation, and being told what to do. He’s a grown man. He can do what he wants.  
Tim reaches a hand across the table, and curls it around Damian’s and the mug of steaming tea. He’s trying to look understanding. Damian wants to kick him in the shins. He manages not to, breathing deeply through his nose a few times before opening his eyes again.  
The look is still on Tim’s face, and Damian’s jaw clenches hard at the sight of it, almost a mockery of the look Dick employs when he’s trying to help. His chin juts a bit with annoyance, sucking his lips into a thin line. Tim’s thumb is warm on the back of his hand, stroking softly. Damian shakes it of with a minute twitch.  
“I’m just trying to help.”  
“You’re failing rather fantastically,” Damian bites. Tim sighs again, shoulders and chest heaving with the weight of it.  
“Why don’t you ever listen?” he asks. He seems genuinely concerned, something that’s strange in retrospect, when Damian holds it up against the fighting of their youth, the angry back and forth, and the death threats. They really have grown up so much.  
It’s Damian’s turn to sigh. He lets the walls of anger that have built up through out this conversation tumble down around him, and leans back against the booth, face turned up to the ceiling. “I’m the child of my parents,” he says, voice strained by the position of his neck. He looks back at Tim. The pretty face, caucasian features, pale skin, his little upturned nose, and the worry in the crease between his eyes.  
“I can’t,” he says. The crease between Tim’s eyes deepens, as his brows draw further up. “I can’t walk away. I can’t leave. I understand that you could. I know you found someone else, someone who gives back. I know you think that Colin and I would be good together, but the thing is we wouldn’t. I don’t love Wilkes the way I love Grayson. I would just push him into the trap I’m in now. I wouldn’t treat him the way he needs to be treated-the way deserves to be treated,” Damian amends.  
Tim looks as if he understands, or wants to. The tilt of his head is one of agreement, that’s mixed with more than a little defeat. He gets that Damian isn’t about to walk away from this. Not ever.  
Damian smiles almost ruefully at that. Finally the understanding he’s been looking for, the backing down he needs. He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out the napkin, unfolding it one handed, and pushing it across the table so that Dick’s hand writing is bared for Tim’s eyes.  
“Call me”  
Tim looks up at Damian, asking permission before reaching out and taking it. He holds the napkin up to the light, and sets it down next to his coffee after checking it over. The dinner is quiet, both of them silent for a moment. The sun is low in the sky, and the cast of the heavy clouds makes it seem darker than it is. A small family; a mother, father, and child chatter on the opposite side, in the other corner of the u shaped room.  
“Are you going to?” Tim asks when the time for silence ends.  
Damian looks down at the table top, and smiles to himself. “It think so.”  
“Why haven’t you?”  
“Maybe I’m afraid of changing things. The last time we were that way, was a long time ago. I don’t know if I remember how to let him help me.”  
Tim chuckles, a small gesture that Damian returns. “I know how that is. It took me forever to let Kon in.”  
“Mm.” Damian places his chin in his hand, and stares at the linoleum flooring. “My mother would kill me.”  
They both laugh then, real laughs, quiet but full, and from their stomachs. Talia would kill him. She would be livid. They can both see the bounty on Damian’s head climbing in numbers if she ever found out.  
Tim slides the napkin back across the table and hails the waiter. He asks for the check, and pulls his wallet out, the price already calculated in his head, plus tax and tip. He’s smiling, almost a cocky smirk. Something he must have picked up from that awful clone of his, or perhaps from Jason during the short period that they were intimate.  
“You go call him, okay? The two of you have lots to talk about, I’m sure.” Tim places the money light on the table, and then stands, not bothering to wait for the check to actually get there. He shrugs his jacket onto his shoulders, and turns his cuffs up. The proper entrepreneur.  
“You’ll call me once you’ve talked to him, wont you? Tell me what’s going on?”  
Tim hands Damian his card, and Damian chuckles, taking it, and tucking it onto the pocket of his hoodie. “Yes.”  
“Good. I’ll see you at dinner next week. Alfred’s making your favorite.”  
Damian frowns. “Toaster grilled cheese, and Captain Crunch?”  
“Oh my God, Dick really did raise you. No. Fillet minion, mashed potatoes, and asparagus.”  
“I’ll be there,” Damian says.  
“Have a good day,” Tim says, walking toward the door. “Oh!” he adds, sharply, peeking back inside and around the glass, “don’t forget to bring a towel.”  
Damian frowns at the door as it swings shut, and then pulls his phone out of his pocket.  
He’s outside, down the stairs and on the sidewalk by the time Dick picks up the phone with a “hello?”  
“Hey,” Damian says, softly.  
“Hey. I was wondering when you’d call.”


End file.
